Measuring Loss

More than a quarter of the U. S. population is vaccinated. With warm weather and outside gatherings on the horizon it's easier to feel hopeful about Covid than anytime in the last 15 months.  But several sobering articles in this morning's newspaper are clouding that sunny outlook. 

The crisis unfolding in India is one. A record jump in the U.S. death rate last year is another — it was the highest above-average rate since the 1918 flu.  

And finally, tucked away on an inside page was this headline: "Measuring a Nation's Loss by the Years Covid Stole from Its Families."

Public health researchers are pushing to include the measure of years lost rather than lives lost as a full measure of the virus's impact. On average, victims of the disease lost nine years of life. While Covid-19 has attacked the old more than the young, it steals time from everyone it fells. 

We've only begun to come to terms with the enormity of our loss from this disease. One way to begin is figuring out how to measure it.